The Competition Bureau is suing Canada’s three biggest wireless carriers and an industry association for allegedly misleading consumers about the cost of premium texting services.

The watchdog accuses Bell (TSX:BCE), Rogers (TSX:RCI.B) and Telus (TSX:T), along with the industry group that represents them, of enabling third parties to sell trivia questions, ringtones and other services without adequately disclosing the cost.

Those can cost up to $10 per transaction and up to $40 for a monthly subscription over and above standard texting plans, the bureau said in a release Friday.

“Our investigation revealed that consumers were under the false impression that certain texts and apps were free,” said bureau commissioner Melanie Aitken.

“Unfortunately, in far too many cases, consumers only became aware of unexpected and unauthorized charges on their mobile phone bills.”

First Check your phone bill: You’re probably being overcharged for data or anything else since customers are still too often ABUSED. Overall, the average overcharge can be at least about 5-7% for most users and in the end it’s typically no fault of yours.

Canada also already has bandwidth caps that are too low, and too expensive. When it comes to taking full advantage of the opportunities the Web opens up, Canadians are are being falsely priced gouged at every turn still by these clearly greedy, immoral Communication firms here.

There are many Canadian ISPs with download caps as low as 15GB for a month, with excess billing charges if you burst through the 15GB limit.

The Netflix stock itself is still smarting 1 year after their severe service price hike. The unexpected twist that Netflix unveiled a year ago had triggered mass customer cancellations and a sell-off in its stock, which had wiped out more than $11 billion US in shareholder wealth. Netflix Inc. has bounced back this year to revive its subscriber growth. But even after a recent rally, its stock remains more than 70 per cent below its peak price of nearly $305 about a year ago, largely because of concerns about what Netflix has been spending to attract and retain subscribers. Many Canadian telecommunications firms have to do the same, pay continually very high amount of advertising to try to make up for the much too many customers they offend and lose http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/07/13/tech-netflix.html

While Canada’s major telecom companies — Rogers (TSX:RCI.B), Bell (TSX:BCE) and Telus (TSX:T) — and consumer advocacy groups all support the idea of national standards that would apply to wireless devices that alone will not deal with the much too many consumer complaints here too. Even Canada’s wireless services needs more serious and valid regulation since they seem to be robbing, price gouging the citizens at every point they can, Canada’s service providers are not competitive enough, and Canadians pay too much compared to telecom users around the worl. Thier broadband caps to a ‘human rights violation’. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos has blasted Canadian internet service providers (ISPs) for their low caps and excess usage charges . Sarandos minced no words when speaking of Canada’s ISPs, stating: “It’s almost a human rights violation, what they’re charging for internet access in Canada.”and he is right. Canada’s internet access is”third world”, and Netflix business in the country has suffered as a result too. Organizations like OpenMedia have been rightfuly battling for Internet openness and fairness to consumers for years. And, of course, Bell, Telus or Rogers have been named the worst throttler in the world. 10% of Canadians use Netflix But Netflix’s Ted Sarandos thinks that number would be a lot higher if it wasn’t for Canadian ISPs. So could likely many others.

Bell Canada, Bell Aliant and Télébec, dominant phone, pay phone providers throughout Ontario, Atlantic Canada and Quebec, all have applied to double the cost of a pay phone call—from 50 cents to a dollar. The cost of using a prepaid debit card would rise to $2 a call. These prices were even previously doubled five years ago. And where else can uou see such a great rater of price increases, inflation under any exuse now to? And is this still a really big issue.. when you consider that the telecomunications firms are not only known big advertsing liars, making loads of money in the processs but they falsely also tend to use a bait and switch policy.. they tend to advertise great, compartive rates but you likley will find next escalting, greedy, price gouging price increases on their servcies with plenty of extra charges, known reasons why they are also hated so much by so many Canadians .. and explaining still simply why they are also making so much money and have become rich, and all this is never acceptable still. It is all sad when you do consider even that Canada drops entirely out of the top 10 when it comes to cellphones, internet infrastructure. Canadian citizens not only do suffer from relatively slow Internet speeds but they are falsely price gouged for using the services too